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MTC ART GALLERY

Walking the Bay Trail

A Photo Journal by Kurt Schwabe

April 1 – May 31, 2014
Oakland City Hall, 3rd Floor
1 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, Oakland, CA
Hours: Weekdays, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Artist’s Statement

As a photographer and writer, I sought for years just one subject, one project, which I could completely immerse myself in. I did not know when it would present itself but I knew I couldn’t force it. I would have to be patient and let it come to me. On a clear spring morning in April 2013 I discovered the Bay Trail and my patience paid off. I resolved to walk, write and photograph the entire San Francisco Bay shoreline, walking the Bay Trail and using public transportation to get to and from the trailheads every day for thirty consecutive days.

Photography was an influential force early in my life. Every major holiday meant a family gathering in my grandparents’ Portland, Oregon, basement for a slideshow of my grandfather’s photography, from his latest jaunt to the rugged Oregon Coast, Cascade Mountains or Columbia River Gorge. A pale yellow 1950s’ era foldable metal TV tray served as a projector table and we would all find a comfortable seat and wait for the show to begin. A single bookshelf, packed tight with old issues of National Geographic, extended high along the length of one wall. Below it a vast collection of his imagery all but covered the walls.

In photographing the Bay Trail I wished, first, to do justice to the legacy of my grandfather—an impossibly tall order—and second, to capture a particular community and shoreline as I experienced it and perhaps inspire others to go see for themselves this majestically intertwined braid of man and nature that connects all of us who are fortunate enough to call the Bay Area home. The printing medium, dye-infused aluminum, was chosen as a metaphor for an urban landscape that folds seamlessly into the shoreline in some places and abruptly and perhaps harshly in others.
— Kurt Schwabe, 2013

See also:

Main art gallery page